MelvinBragg

September is all the official site says. Whether that's the 1st September or the 30th, just need to wait and see. Unfortunately, and this will apply to Dunne as well, I suspect that similar to Hartley that it's going to Tanner a good while before he's back at anything like 100%...

Tempted to go for Rodriguez-Gorrin as he definitely looked to give us more urgency. But given Frear set up two goals and looked our most dangerous player most of the day, I'll go for him..

I actually thought that Gorrin made a difference when he came on. Always showed for the ball and moved it on quickly. People are saying that Main is rusty. Given his previous career, I'm wondering if he's reverting to type and the second half of last season was an anomaly. Obviously I'm hoping not. Hartley, we can only hope that his sharpness will come back. Loss of our quickest centre back for a few months at the same time makes the problem worse as Dunne's pace could have covered for Hartley while he gets up to speed. With Tanner and Dunne out for a while yet, we have to hope that we find a solution without them, or we could end up in real trouble...

First time I've seen us this season and it wasn't pretty. Back three looked iffy all day, marginally better with McHugh but given so much of last season's relative success was down do being hard to beat, it's a major concern. Midfield seemed to disappear for long periods, particularly in the first half. Gorrin definitely improved things. Main was dreadful. For me, he's done next to nothing since the semi final. If Bowman is unavailable, I'd be starting Johnson and Sammon. And finally a word on Elliot Frear. I know he frustrates the life out of people by being conservative and not always taking his man on. Problem is that you're judging him as a winger when he's playing at wing back and if he loses possession, there's no full back behind him to cover. Frustrating as he may be, he still set up two of our goals today...

Nowhere near good enough. Back three is an absolute shambles. People last season questioning McHugh's place in the team as captain, we now have the same issue with Hartley..

Maybe good as last year we were and were away to another SPL side..

Not confident at all. Hopefully the team prove me wrong...

You see, this is what irritates me. Last year and this year, all we hear is how 'we'll be ready by the first league game' and these games are about getting fitness. This is a cup, one of only two trophies we can win, not a pre season tournament. We did well in the cups last year but even then I remember feeling the group games (for all we won them) had a sense of not being treated like competitive games. When it's all about 'minutes in legs' results like today can happen...

Really not good enough. I had a feeling this would be a difficult season and it seems I might be right. Unbalanced squad, all hard work and no guile. A lot rests on Tanner coming back and Gorrin coming good...

I'm guessing 442 diamond given the lack of obvious width?

Ross MacLean scores for Morton along with a former player of hours...

Really should be winning all four group games but Stranraer away could be tricky. I suspect it'll be a late winner for us..

Professional job even if we didn't score in the second half. Was working so unable to make the game. Be interesting to hear how we played and how the new players performed...

The way the BBC has the team listed, it looks like 352 but I wouldn't put too much stock in that...

442, I'm assuming? Or a 352 with a midfield three of Campbell, Rose and Cadden with Frear and Tait at wing back...

Who is this creative midfielder we have got rid of?

Not a massive fan of signing Sammon. For me, too similar in style to the strikers we already have...

As soon as it said that he had only featured in 17 league games, I stopped reading. If you're going to take the time to make stuff up and put it out there, take some time to do some basic research...

Looking at tonight's team lineup It struck me that be it 352 or 442, almost certain McHugh would be playing centre back again. Unless we're playing Tait in a back three for some unknown reason. So that's McHugh in a back three or four with four centre midfielders on the bench. Anyone think we have too many midfielders.. ?

Plummer, Petravicius, Hendrie and Fisher are the ones that spring to mind. Bigirimana and Grimshaw maybe didn't have the impact that we'd have hoped...

Robinson did mention that he was looking to get another forward in and I don't reckon we'll have put all our eggs in one Tony Watt shaped basket, if we were even in for him. Description of the player he's after sounds very similar to Petravicius though so let's hope if we get someone that he works out better than him...

Could make a case for Brian McClair...

Was there not some strong rumours on here that Aldred had no desire to stay here beyond the summer?

I think you're kidding yourself on about how good Kipré is...

Cheap in English Championship terms is probably still a lot of money to us...